Jacob Shymanski

Next up, Sarah, what's your favorite book that you discovered in 2025?

You described it as not being ironic, that it just is what it is.

And I know what you mean by that.

There's a quality to a lot of books that came out post-2010-ish.

And even movies and TV shows, this post-modern sensibility as if everything's been done already.

And there's always this subtext of ironic cynicism.

And it just gets grating.

And sometimes you just want to be told a story that's a story for a story's sake.

Or like a commentary on AI and art in the 21st century or something like that.

It's just a story.

It's not super deep with the themes.

It's just a good story.

It's not that deep.

I have a recommendation.

This is my favorite book of 2025.

It came out all the way back in 1970, but I only read it this summer.

And it coincided, well, it basically launched my new interest into baseball.

It's a baseball book that was recommended to me from like three separate people in my lives, like unrelated.

It was very weird.

It was just meant to be, I guess.